One text, 2 sources · Trismegistos-Text 3305
Petition about a cloak stolen and deposited in a Jewish prayer-house TM 3305Alexandru Nesos (Arsinoites)
The same ancient text or artifact as recorded by 3 records across 2 independent projects, recognised as one entity by its TM-Text identifier. View on Trismegistos →
A petition to King Ptolemy from a woman of Alexandrou Nesos in the Arsinoite nome, complaining that a man named Dorotheos stole her cloak. The cloak ended up deposited with Nikomachos, the sexton of the Jewish prayer-house, pending judgment, and she asks that the strategos Diophanes have the matter investigated and the cloak or its value returned to her.
In English machine translation
[To King Ptolemy, greetings from …, one of those] in Alexandrou Nesos. I am wronged by
[Dorotheos …] ⟦… her⟧ village. For in year 5, according to the revenue reckoning, in Phamenoth,
[…] my fellow wool-worker, having noticed my cloak,
[…] went off with it. When I perceived it, […]
[…] the cloak in the prayer-house of the Jews […] people; and Lezelmis, holder of 100 arouras, arrives on the scene
[…] the cloak to Nikomachos the sexton until judgment
[…] I beg you therefore, O King, to order Diophanes
[the strategos to write …] to the epistates to send Dorotheos and Nikomachos [… and the] cloak before him, and, if what I write is true,
[to compel him to give me back the] cloak or its price, and concerning the misdeed
[…] For if this is done, I shall, through you, O King,
[have obtained justice]. Farewell.
…
The text mentions a proseuche (prayer-house, i.e. synagogue) of the Jews, an early attestation of a Jewish community in the Fayum. 'Holder of 100 arouras' is a military cleruch rank; the petitioner is a woman, as shown by the feminine participles.
Working translation of the DDbDP edition, made with Claude Opus 5.5 from the edition and the catalogue records shown below (catalogued as Vol d’un manteau). It has not been reviewed by a papyrologist: check the edition before citing. Restorations follow the edition; […] marks lost text and (?) an uncertain reading.
p.enteux.30
βασιλεῖ Πτολεμαίωι χαίρειν[…]τῶν ἐν τῆι Ἀλεξάνδρου νήσωι. ἀδικοῦμαι ὑπὸ Δωροθέου[…] κώμην. τοῦ γὰρ ε ἔτους, ὡς αἱ πρόσοδοι, Φαμενὼθ […] τῆι συνερίθωι μου προσνοήσας ἱμάτιόν μου […] αὐτὸ ᾤχετο ἔχων. αἰσθομένης δέ μου κατε[…] […]τὸ ἱμάτιον ἐν τῆι προσευχῆι τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐπιλα[…]ωπου…